After over three years in which IDF St.-Sgt. Gilad Schalit has been held in Hamas captivity in the Gaza Strip, Israel breathed a sigh of relief on Friday afternoon after video footage of the captive soldier was released to the media and aired on Israeli television channels.

The two-minute long clip shows Schalit addressing Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and his parents Noam and Aviva, telling them he is being treated well by the Hamas and is in good health, but yearning for the day on which he will see his family again. Schalit is seen clean shaven with a fresh haircut, wearing dark green clothes.

The video was received in return for the release of 20 Palestinian female prisoners. Israel released 19 of them on Friday morning, 18 to the West Bank and one to Gaza. The 20th prisoner will be released Sunday, after it turned out that a prisoner released Wednesday was finishing her sentence anyway and would therefore be released regardless of the deal.

Following is the full transcript of Schalit's video message:

"Hello, I am Gilad, son of Noam and Aviva Schalit, brother of Hadas and Yoel, who lives in Mitzpe Hila. My ID number is 300097029.

"As you see I am holding in my hands the Palestine newspaper of September 14, 2009, published in Gaza. I am reading the paper in order to find information regarding myself, hoping to find some information from which I would learn of my release and upcoming return home. I have been hoping and waiting for the day of my release for a long time. I hope the current government under Binyamin Netanyahu will not waste the chance to finalize a deal, and I will therefore be able to finally have my dream come true and be released.

"I wish to send regards to my family and say to them that I love and miss them and yearn for the day in which I will see them again.

"Dad, Yoel and Hadas, do you remember the day when you visited my base on the Golan Heights on December 31st, 2005, that if I am not mistaken was called Revaya B. We walked around the base and you took photos of me on the Merkava tank and on one of the old tanks at the entrance to the base. We then went to a restaurant in one of the Druse villages and on the way we took photos on the side of the road with the snow-capped Mount Hermon in the background.

"I wish to say to you that I feel good, health-wise, and the Mujahadeen of the Izzadien al-Qassam Brigades are treating me very well. Thank you and goodbye."

In the footage, Schalit addresses the camera directly, and at one point walks up to the camera and then returns to his chair. He also appears relaxed, not terrified. Channel 10 TV commentators said Jerusalem had demanded that Schalit get up and take a few steps to prove he was able-bodied. The details about his family's visit to his military base, they said, were meant to prove the man reading the text was not an impostor.

By 12:30pm, Netanyahu's appointee on the Schalit case, Hagai Hadas, reached the Prime Minister's official residence in Jerusalem with the footage. Hadas and IDF Chief of General Staff Lt.-Gen. Gabi Ashkenazi had already reviewed the footage and approved the release of the prisoners, indicating that the video fulfilled Israel's demands, namely that the video was at least a minute long, recent and showed Schalit talking.

OC Manpower Division Maj.-Gen. Avi Zamir arrived by helicopter with a copy of the video at the Schalit residence in Mitzpe Hila, where he was scheduled to view the video with the family.

Noam Schalit said before viewing the tape that the family eagerly awaits it.

Gilad Schalit has been held in captivity in the Gaza Strip for 1,196 days.

THAT'S RIGHT FOLKS; WE HAD THIS STORY YESTERDAY - BEFORE SURBER OR REYNOLDS OR ANYBODY ELSE.

REGULAR READERS KNOW WE SCOOP THE BIGGIES ALL THE TIME.

SPREAD THE WORD.

*******Update:

We scooped Instapundit and Don Surber on this too:

DANES EXPLAIN WHY OBAMA FAILED: “It comes down to respect. President Obama showed none. . . . He was ill-prepared and his staff failed to lay the foundation for his appearance. He came off as an ugly American who knew nothing about the territory and who felt the world somehow owed him something.” Posted at 4:40 pm by Glenn Reynolds

If Obama REALLY wanted to increase economic growth all he has to do is RESCIND THE STIMULUS and cut all taxes by 25% for the balance of his term.

The economy will grow.

If he wants everyone to buy health insurance all he has to do is mandate interstate competition; give families the same tax break that businesses get for buying healthcare insurance; and cap malpractice torts.

Obama's economic schemes, his fiscal & tax policies, and CO2 regulations will do more to hurt the US economy and cause job losses than anything in our history.

By ignoring the impracticalities of his own policies and the efficacy's of the Right's polices, Obama is proving to be either the least curious and most ideological person to ever be POTUS, or he's dumb as shit, or he WANTS to ruin the USA and thereby the West.

It calls on states to condemn and criminalize "any advocacy of national, racial or religious hatred that constitutes incitement to discrimination, hostility or violence."

It also condemns "negative stereotyping of religions and racial groups," which is of course an oblique reference to accurate reporting about the jihad doctrine and Islamic supremacism -- which is always the focus of whining by the Organization of the Islamic Conference and other groups about negative "stereotyping" of Islam.

They never say anything when people like Osama bin Laden and KhaledSheikhMohammed issue detailed Koranic expositions justifying violence and hatred; but when people like GeertWilders and others report about such expositions, that's "negative stereotyping."

And the worst aspect of this and all such measures is that the "Incitement" and the "hatred" are in the eye of the beholder.

BY SPONSORING AND SUPPORTING THIS RESOLUTION, OBAMA HASN'T SERVED OR PROTECTED THE CONSTITUTION OF THE USA.

HE HAS IN FACT GONE AGAINST HIS SWORN OATH OF OFFICE.

HE HAS IN FACT COMMITTED AN IMPEACHABLE OFFENSE.WE MUST IMPEACH OBAMA.

There shall be no cupcakes. No chocolate cake and no carrot cake. According to New York City’s latest regulations, not even zucchini bread makes the cut.

In an effort to limit how much sugar and fat students put in their bellies at school, the Education Department has effectively banned most bake sales, the lucrative if not quite healthy fund-raising tool for generations of teams and clubs.

The change is part of a new wellness policy that also limits what can be sold in vending machines and student-run stores, which use profits to help finance activities like pep rallies and proms. The elaborate rules were outlined in a three-page memo issued at the end of June, but in the new school year, principals and parents are just beginning to, well, digest them.

HE dumps salt on almost everything, even saltine crackers. He devours burnt bacon and peanut butter sandwiches. He has a weakness for hot dogs, cheeseburgers, and fried chicken, washing them down with a glass of merlot.

And his snack of choice? Cheez-Its.

Mayor Michael R. Bloomberg has become New York City’s nutritional nag, banning the use of trans fats, forcing chain restaurants to post calorie counts and exhorting diners to consume less salt. Now he is at it again, directing his wrath at sugary drinks in a new series of arresting advertisements that ask subway riders: “Are you pouring on the pounds?”

But an examination of what enters the mayoral mouth reveals that Mr. Bloomberg is an omnivore with his own glaring indulgences, many of them at odds with his own policies. And he struggles mightily to restrain his appetite.

As a billionaire in one of the dining capitals of the world, he can eat anything he wants. But he is obsessed with his weight — so much so that the sight of an unflattering photo of himself can trigger weeks of intense dieting and crankiness, according to friends and aides.

His food issues have become New York City’s. Although he has described his battle against unhealthy foods as common-sense public policy that will shed pounds (and save lives), many of his targets overlap with his own cravings.

“I like a Big Mac like everybody else,” he confessed the other day, explaining the city’s warts-and-all approach to fast food. “I just want to know how many calories are in it.”

Under his watch, the city has declared sodium an enemy, asking restaurants and food manufacturers to voluntarily cut the salt in their dishes by 20 percent or more, and encouraging diners to “shake the habit” by asking waiters for food without added salt.

But Mr. Bloomberg, 67, likes his popcorn so salty that it burns others’ lips. (At Gracie Mansion, the cooks deliver it to him with a salt shaker.) He sprinkles so much salt on his morning bagel “that it’s like a pretzel,” said the manager at Viand, a Greek diner near Mr. Bloomberg’s Upper East Side town house.

Not even pizza is spared a coat of sodium. When the mayor sat down to eat a slice at Denino’s Pizzeria Tavern on Staten Island recently, this reporter spotted him applying six dashes of salt to it.

A health tip sheet from the mayor’s office tells New Yorkers to “drink smart” by choosing water, even though Mr. Bloomberg has a three- to four-cup-a-day coffee habit.

“I can count on two hands the number of times I have seen him drink water,” said one dining companion, who spoke on condition of anonymity...

I GUESS HE DOESN'T REALLY BELIEVE IN ALL THAT LIBERAL DIET CRAP.

THIS IS SO SO SO SO SO SOOOOOOOOOO TYPICAL OF LEFTISTS:

GORE AND TOM FRIEDMAN HAVE A HUGE MANSIONS THAT REQUIRE TONS OF A/C AND HEAT;

MICHAEL MOORE HATES UNIONS;

RANGEL AND GEITHNER CHEAT ON THEIR TAXES;

OBAMA WANTS YOUR MEDICAL RECORDS ON LINE, BUT WON'T RELEASE HIS;

PINCH SULZBERGER IS AGAINST THE 2ND AMENDMENT BUT HAS A HANDGUN LICENSE HIMSELF;

Mahmoud Ahmadinejad revealed to have Jewish past — Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's vitriolic attacks on the Jewish world hide an astonishing secret, evidence uncovered by The Daily Telegraph shows. — A photograph of the Iranian president holding up his identity card during elections in March 2008 clearly shows his family has Jewish roots.

SOME OF US PAY ATTENTION TO THE NEWS AS IT HAPPENS, NOT JUST AS SOME TABLOID PRESENTS IT.

MAHMOUD IS JUST ANOTHER SELF-HATING IRRATIONAL SOCIALISTIC WEST-HATING UTOPIANISTIC PIECE OF CRAP. JUST MORE DANGEROUS. ESPECIALLY IF HE GETS THE BOMB.

SELF-HATING JEWS AND "JEW-HATING DERACINATED JEWS" ARE AMONG THE WORST PEOPLE IN HUMAN HISTORY: KARL MARX WAS A FORMER JEW WHO HATED JEWS; SO WAS TROTSKY; AND CHOMSKY AND ZINN COME TO MIND; AND THEN THERE'S Harold Pinter, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt... AND MOST ARE NOT ZIONISTS.

MOST THINK HUMANS HAVE THE ABILITY TO PERFECT THE WORLD AND THAT THEY AND THEIR COMRADES SHOULD BE GIVEN THE POWER TO PERFECT THE WORLD.

PEOPLE WHO THINK THEY CAN PERFECT THE WORLD ARE THE ROOT OF TYRANNY AND EVIL IN THE WORLD.

A German publisher has cancelled plans to publish a mass-market novel out of fears that it might face violent protests due to a rude reference to the Koran...

The crime novel - about the "honour killing" of a Muslim woman - had been scheduled for September publication, but the Droste publishing company of Dusseldorf decided not to print it...

... the offensive phrase in question was a character saying: "You can shove your Koran up ..."

Publisher Felix Droste had asked an expert on Islamic society to study whether the crime story's text could compromise the safety of his firm or his family, and the expert suggested the phrase be modified.

But the author refused to alter it to "You can shove your honour up ..."

Droste wrote back that riots over Danish cartoons that poked fun at the Prophet Mohammed in 2005 showed that anyone publishing insults to Islam was putting their safety at risk...

TERROR WORKS ON SOME PEOPLE:

COWARDS, KNAVES, LE FISTS AND POSTMODERNISTS.

THIS PUBLISHER IS ACTUALLY AIDING THE ENEMY BY APPEASING THE ENEMY: BY REFUSING TO PUBLISH THIS NOVEL HE SENDS THE UNMISTAKABLE MESSAGE THAT TERROR AND INTIMIDATION WORKS AND THAT ENCOURAGES MORE TERROR.

Bluehenge was put up 5,000 years ago – around the same time as work began on Stonehenge, and appears to be a miniature version of it, researchers say.

The two circles stood together for hundreds of years before Bluehenge was dismantled. Researchers believe its stones were later used to enlarge Stonehenge.

Bluehenge lies at the end of the 'Avenue' – a pathway that connected Stonehenge to the Avon. All that remains of the smaller circle are the holes of 27 giant stones set on a ramped mount. Chips of stone found in the holes appear to be the same as those used in Stonehenge.

The stone, made of Preseli Spotted Dolerite – a chemically altered igneous rock which is harder than granite – were mined in the Preseli Mountains in Pembrokeshire and dragged and floated 200 miles to the site on the banks of the river.

The new monument was discovered by Professor Mike Parker Pearson, of Sheffield University, who believes the monuments were linked to rituals of life and death.

Other archaeologists believe it is impossible to be certain about their purpose, and that given Stonehenge was created, used and modified over 1,400 years that it was likely to be used for many different things.

The major media will not likely tackle the emerging evidence of Obama's stunning literary fraud, but the days of Obama's boasting about his writing skills are just as likely over. The immediate cause of concern at the White House is Christopher Andersen's largely benign new book, Barack and Michelle: Portrait of an American Marriage.

Andersen contends that the ambitious Obama, unaware of JFK's own literary fraud, hoped to launch his own political career with a book as did John Kennedy with the discreetly ghost-written Profiles In Courage. Despite a large advance, Obama found himself "hopelessly blocked." After four futile years of trying to finish, Obama "sought advice from his friend and Hyde Park neighbor Bill Ayers." This he did "at Michelle's urging," she being the more pragmatic half of the couple.

What attracted the Obamas were "Ayers's proven abilities as a writer." Barack particularly liked the fluid novelistic style of To Teach, a 1993 book by Ayers. This he hoped to emulate for his own family history. In fact, he had already taped interviews with many of his relatives, both African and American. The key sentence in Andersen's account is the one that follows: "These oral histories, along with his partial manuscript and a trunkload of notes were given to Ayers." Adds Andersen, "Thanks to help from veteran writer Ayers, Barack would be able to submit a manuscript to his editors at Times Book." The manuscript in question would become Obama's 1995 memoir, Dreams From My Father, what Joe Klein of Time Magazine called "the best-written memoir ever produced by an American politician."

From textual sleuthing, I had come to a comparable conclusion more than a year ago, namely that Obama had "turned the framework of his life over to terrorist emeritus Bill Ayers who roughed it in with his own darker sentiments and experiences."

As one example of Ayers' involvement, I had argued that Dreams' tale of Obama's year-long relationship with a rich, green-eyed lovely seemed to have mined the details of Ayers' own relationship to the late Weatherwoman Diana Oughton. From a close reading, I doubted there was such a girl in Obama's life. So does Andersen. "No one," he writes, "including his roommate and closest friend at the time, Siddiqi, knew of this mysterious lover's existence."

It did not matter, however, how accurate was my analysis. From the perspective of Obama's literary defenders, I was a barbarian who could effectively be kept in check outside the gates.

Andersen writes from within the gates. He has no agenda. His book is dispassionate, softly liberal and largely sympathetic to the Obamas, particularly to Michelle and her family. A popular celebrity journalist, he interviewed some 200 people for the book, many of them close to the Obama family. The Obamas had likely given at least their tacit blessing to the project. Given that the natural audience for his book skews female and left, Andersen had no reason to invent facts that would alienate his base. He has no track record of doing the same.

Although Andersen cites me on textual comparisons, I was clearly not the source for the personal details of Obama's life. His retelling of the story was based on what he had been told by someone very close to the action. He had access to people who would never have talked to me, quite possibly Michelle herself or even Bill Ayers.

Clearly shaken, the Obama-centric media find themselves in a fix not unlike that of medieval astronomers upon discovery of a new planet. Every time this happened, these geocentrists had to figure out a convoluted new loop to describe the planet's rotation around the earth. So it is with challenges to the Obama myth, even unwitting ones like Andersen's. Obama's acolytes must find some convoluted new explanation to account for each unexpected deviance from the mythic overview.

Defenses mustered in the last few days include a lack of attribution by Andersen, his ignorance of an imagined "computerized analysis" by an Oxford professor, the citation of me as source and/or a reliance upon me as source. Each of these explanations implies that Andersen is a fraud and a liar and that he contrived the story he told. Andersen's highly successful career as a celebrity journalist argues strongly against such an interpretation.

What impresses the reader about these defenses is how easily their architects satisfy themselves and presumably the Obama faithful with their soundness. The Washington Independent's David Weigel, for instance, is among those who dismiss Andersen's claim because he credits me as a source. To trivialize my contribution, Weigel cites one point of comparison between Obama and Ayers -- their mutual use of the phrase "behind enemy lines" to establish their place in capitalist America -- as though I had not also listed hundreds of other such comparisons, many much more compelling.

Had he read Andersen's book, which he does not appear to have, Weigel would have seen that Andersen's retelling of the story was based not on what I had written but on what Andersen had been told by someone who was on the scene. A close reading of the book, however, might have shaken Weigel's faith in his Milli Vanilli of messiahs.

"I've written two books," Obama told a crowd of students and teachers in Virginia last year. "I actually wrote them myself." The media should be able to protect his reputation among the willfully blind but don't expect to hear Obama make comparable boasts in the near future.

Friday, October 02, 2009

Roman Polanski in 1993 agreed to pay his sexual assault victim $500,000 to settle a damage claim she filed against the fugitive film director, according to court papers released Friday.Director Roman Polanski pleaded guilty in 1977 to having unlawful sex with a 13-year-old girl.

Polanski still owed the money -- plus another $100,000 in interest -- three years after the settlement, according to the documents.

It's not clear if Polanski ever completed paying the claim, which was filed 12 years after the crime. The court papers document efforts by the victim's lawyers to garnish residuals and other payments owed to Polanski by the Screen Actors Guild, movie studios and other Hollywood businesses.

WOULD MICHELLE OBAMA LET POLANSKI HAVE SEX WITH HER DAUGHTER MALIA FOR $500,000?

The NHS is letting down women with breast cancer by offering less than half of sufferers the chance to have reconstructive surgery immediately after a mastectomy, an official report reveals.

Just 48% of women with the disease were offered the option of reconstruction in 2007-08 even though National Institute for Health and Clinical Excellence guidelines say it should be 100% of eligible patients, according to the National Mastectomy and Breast Reconstruction Audit.

MICHELLE OBAMA WAS WRONG TO ARGUE THAT WOMEN ARE HURT BY OUR HEALTHCARE SYSTEM.

AMERICAN WOMEN ARE BETTER SERVED THAN THEIR EUROPEAN COUSINS.

THE ONLY BENEFICIARIES OF OBAMACARE ARE BIG GOVERNMENT, BIG GOVERNMENT UNIONS AND BIG GOVERNMENT CRONIES.

When France chides you for appeasement, you know you're scraping bottom. ... At the council table, with Obama at the chair, he [SARKOZY] reminded Obama that "we live in a real world, not a virtual world."

He explained: "President Obama has even said, 'I dream of a world without [nuclear weapons].' Yet before our very eyes, two countries are currently doing the exact opposite."

TELEGRAPH: Gordon Brown and Nicolas Sarkozy had a behind-the-scenes row with Barack Obama over last week's announcement about a secret uranium enrichment plant in Iran.

The President is believed to have angered the European leaders by insisting on delaying a joint press conference until after he had chaired a meeting of the UN Security Council.

Mr Obama is said to have been worried the announcement would undermine the impact of his session on nuclear non-proliferation.

Details of the disagreement appeared to explain why Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy, the French president, took a harder line on Iran than the American leader at the meeting.

The Prime Minister said it was time "to draw a line in the sand" on Tehran's nuclear programme while the Frenchman mocked Mr Obama for the naivety of his "dreams" of eliminating nuclear weapons.

According to French officials, Mr Brown and particularly Mr Sarkozy wanted to make a declaration on Sep 24, either at the Security Council meeting chaired by the US president or just afterwards.

The Europeans considered that there was no better stage from which to tell the world that the three countries' intelligence services had worked together to uncover an underground uranium enrichment facility under construction at Qom.

But Mr Obama did not want to "spoil the image of success" of his disarmament session, which passed a resolution to work towards a nuclear-free world and a host of measures designed to control the spread of nuclear weapons and reduce existing stocks.

After much arm-twisting, Mr Brown and Mr Sarkozy were persuaded to delay the announcement until the opening of the G20 summit the next day in Pittsburgh.

OBAMA'S PENCHANT FOR APPEASEMENT - WHETHER DERIVED FROM LEFTIST NAIVETE OR A DEEP ENMITY TO THE WEST - IS A GRAVE THREAT TO THE FREE WORLD.

(A SCOOP IS A POST TO A HOT NEWS ITEM BEFORE ANYONE ELSE, OR AN ORIGINAL OPINION OR ANALYSIS PIECE WHICH APPEARS WELL BEFORE THE SAME OPINION OR ANALYSIS APPEARED AT A MORE HEAVILY TRAFFICKED AND WELL-KNOWN BLOG.)

The Gallup poll released earlier today is an extremely thorough survey of Jewish voters across the country. The results of the poll reinforce what we and others have been saying for some time, that many in the Jewish community are experiencing "buyer's remorse" with regard to their support for President Obama.

Support for President Obama among Jewish voters is eroding at an significant rate. Since January, Obama's approval rating has collapsed from 83% to 64%, a 23% decline in support, with the trend line indicating a clear downward trajectory.

- Den måde at komme og være her i fem timer på, er et udtryk for en mangel på respekt for det, som valget af værtsby skal rumme, siger Kai Holm til ekstrabladet.dk - The way to come and be here for five hours, is a manifestation of a lack of respect for what the choice of host city must accommodate, "says Kai Holm to ekstrabladet.dk

For nogle år siden besluttede IOC, at medlemmerne ikke længere måtte rejse rundt til byerne på individuelle besøg. Some years ago, the IOC decided that members no longer had to travel to cities in individual visits.Siden dengang har statsoverhoveder som Tony Blair og Putin besøgt IOC-kongressen for at tale forskellige kandidaters sag, men de har alle tilbragt længere tid med IOC-medlemmerne. Since then, heads of state as Tony Blair and Putin visited the IOC congress to discuss various candidates matter, but they have all spent more time with IOC members.

Barack Obama brugte ikke meget mere end en time i selskab med IOC-medlemmerne i Bella Centeret. Barack Obama did not spend much more than an hour in the company of IOC members in the Bella Center.Det straffede de 94 stemmeberettigede IOC-medlemmer. It punished the 94 voting IOC members.

Two years ago, British High Court Justice Michael Burton characterized Gore's film as "alarmism and exaggeration in support of his political thesis." The court, responding to a case filed by a parent, said the film was "one-sided" and could not be shown in British schools unless it contained guidelines to balance Gore's attempt at "political indoctrination."

The judge based his decision on nine inaccuracies in the movie. The Gore-loving U.S. media largely ignored the story, but starting premiere night Oct. 18, Americans will hear it in Not Evil Just Wrong. To set the stage, here is a recap of Gore's claims and why they are flawed:

The claim: Melting in Greenland or West Antarctica will cause sea levels to rise up to 20 feet in the near future. The truth: The Intergovernmental Panel On Climate Change concluded that sea levels might rise 20 feet over millennia -- and it waffled on that prediction. The IPCC envisions a rise of no more than 7 inches to 23 inches by 2100. Gore's claim is "a very disturbing misstatement of the science," John Day, who argued the British case, says in Not Evil Just Wrong. The judge said Gore's point "is not in line with the scientific consensus.

The claim: Polar bears are drowning because they have to swim farther to find ice. The truth: Justice Burton noted that the only study citing the drowning of polar bears (four of them) blamed the deaths on a storm, not ice that is melting due to manmade global warming. The Senate Environment and Public Works Committee, furthermore, found that the current bear population is 20,000-25,000, up from 5,000-10,000 in the 1950s and 1960s. Day says in Not Evil Just Wrong that the appeal to polar bears is "a very clever piece of manipulation."

The claim: Global warming spawned Hurricane Katrina in 2005. The truth: "It is common ground that there is insufficient evidence to show that," Burton wrote in his ruling. A May 2007 piece in New Scientist refuted the Katrina argument as a "climate myth" because it's impossible to tie any single weather event to global warming.

The claim: Increases in temperature are the result of increases in carbon dioxide. The truth: Burton questioned the two graphs Gore used in An Inconvenient Truth. Gore argued that there is "an exact fit" between temperature and CO2, Burton said, but his graphs didn't support that conclusion. Recent data also do not support it: The global temperature has been declining for about a decade, even as CO2 levels continue rising.

The claim: The snow on Mount Kilimanjaro is melting because of global warming. The truth: The melting has been under way for more than a century -- long before SUVs and jumbo jets -- and appears to be the result of other causes. Justice Burton noted that scientists agree the melting can't be blamed primarily on "human-induced climate change."

The claim: Lake Chad is disappearing because of global warming. The truth: Lake Chad is losing water, and humans are contributing to the losses. But the humans in the lake's immediate vicinity, rather than mankind as a whole using fossil fuels, are to blame. Burton cited factors like population, overgrazing and regional climate variability.

The claim: People are being forced to evacuate low-lying Pacific atolls, islands of coral that surround lagoons, because of encroaching ocean waters. The truth: By their very nature, atolls are susceptible to rising sea levels. But Burton said pointedly in his ruling, "There is no evidence of any such evacuation having yet happened."

The claim: Coral reefs are bleaching and putting fish in jeopardy. The truth: In his ruling, Burton emphasized the IPCC's finding that bleaching could kill coral reefs -- if they don't adapt. A report released this year shows that reefs already are thriving in waters as hot as some people say ocean waters will be 100 years from now. Burton also said it is difficult to separate coral stresses such as over-fishing from any changes in climate.

The claim: Global warming could stop the "ocean conveyor," triggering another ice age in Western Europe. The truth: Once again, Gore's allies at the IPCC disagree with that argument. Burton cited the panel in concluding that "it is very unlikely that the ocean conveyor ... will shut down in the future." The fact that the scientific understanding of how the conveyor belt works remains unsettled further exposes the flaw in Gore's claim.

The Central England Temperature (CET) record, starting in 1659 and maintained by the UK Met Office, is the longest unbroken temperature record in the world. Temperature data is averaged for a number of weather stations regarded as being representative of Central England rather than measuring temperature at one arbitrary geographical point identified as the centre of England.

A Scottish statistician, Wilson Flood, has collected and analysed the 351 year CET record. Here is the comparison of the 18th Century with the 20th Century:

Wilson Flood comments:

“Summers in the second half of the 20th century were warmer than those in the first half and it could be argued that this was a global warming signal. However, the average CET summer temperature in the 18th century was 15.46 degC while that for the 20th century was 15.35 degC. Far from being warmer due to assumed global warming, comparison of actual temperature data shows that UK summers in the 20th century were cooler than those of two centuries previously.”

Only by playing with data can scientists come up with the infamous ‘hockey stick’ graph of global warming

By Ross McKitrick

B

eginning in 2003, I worked with Stephen McIntyre to replicate a famous result in paleoclimatology known as the Hockey Stick graph. Developed by a U.S. climatologist named Michael Mann, it was a statistical compilation of tree ring data supposedly proving that air temperatures had been stable for 900 years, then soared off the charts in the 20th century. Prior to the publication of the Hockey Stick, scientists had held that the medieval-era was warmer than the present, making the scale of 20th century global warming seem relatively unimportant. The dramatic revision to this view occasioned by the Hockey Stick’s publication made it the poster child of the global warming movement. It was featured prominently in a 2001 report of the U.N. Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), as well as government websites and countless review reports.

Parents usually want their children to have a better life than they did. In the United States, the parents of today's under-30 crowd may be disappointed in that hope. Throughout last year, they were far more likely than other age groups to have reported unemployment in their households. Labor force participation for those ages 16-24 has decreased to its lowest levels since WWII as a Pew report on the graying work force notes that the recession has tilted the job market towards older workers and those with degrees.

The Pew report also says that nearly a third of the public has come to believe that a degree is necessary to get a good job, whereas 30 years ago, just under half believed that. As former President Clinton pointed out last week at a a press event, the cost of a degree has tripled in recent decades, entirely wiping out the benefits of every government assistance program for college costs.

Those college costs are usually financed instead by loans which are currently not eligible for bankruptcy protection. Loan repayment therefore eats up larger percentages of future earnings which have been plummeting for 8 years for those under 55. Bad timing for anyone who's taken out student loans in recent years in the hopes that the job market would catch up to their education expenditures, and worse luck if their parents' declining wages reduce the possibility for family assistance.

A third of adults under 27 also lack health coverage, with nearly half of those young adults earning less than $14,000 per year. Since wages for most people have been effectively stagnant, they have not kept pace with health coverage increases, and the lower you go down the economic ladder, the truer that is. Especially because there's been an ongoing decline in employer-based coverage that has disproportionately affected low-income workers and the small businesses that create the most jobs.

For another worrying indicator, an AARP poll earlier this year indicated that around a quarter of adults 18 and over are living with parents or in-laws. Another 15 percent were worried they might have to do so soon, while one in seven lived with a sibling.

I don't know about you, but the American Dream I was sold didn't include worse buying power and relative wealth than my blue-collar, high school-educated parents for myself, my peers and those who came after me.

The Leftist author above can see the problem but goes on to say that the solution is more factory jobs! She seems unable to see that ever more of America's wealth is being sucked up by a vast, continuously growing and useless bureaucracy that has been foisted on Americans by Democrats at Federal, State and local levels. America's vast army of paper-shufflers CONSUME wealth. They don't create it. And, to add insult to injury, they are on average paid far more than private-sector workers

In a surprise appearance arranged by the Geneva human rights organization UN Watch, Dr. Mirela Siderer — an Israeli doctor who was brutally disfigured in 2008 by a rocket attack fired from Gaza into her Ashkelon medical clinic — pointedly accused Goldstone of ignoring her July oral testimony in his report, and of failing to disclose material information concerning the prior statements of the Human Rights Council and panel members declaring Israel guilty in advance. Sitting on the dais, Goldstone was visibly shaken by Dr. Siderer’s challenge and scrambled for a copy of her speech. His response to the plenary ignored 7 of her questions, and inadequately responded to the 8th.

Goldstone is clearly a cold-blooded man who should be shunned by sensible society. Unfortunately, if we were to bring up Obama's administration, they have done nothing more than to play the moral equivalence game in all this mess.

The Jerusalem Post reports that Benjamin Netanyahu had a very stern response to the Goldstone report in the cabinet:

Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu had some harsh words for the world during the government meeting on Thursday, saying that if the international community endorses the Goldstone Report on Israel's Operation Cast Lead in the Gaza Strip last winter, the peace process with the Palestinians, as well as the global war on terror, would be dealt a fatal blow.

"In the next 24 hours a vote will be cast in Geneva within the UN Human Rights Council," Netanyahu told the ministers.

"I remind you that this very council has adopted more resolutions targeting Israel than resolutions targeting all other 180 countries in the world put together," he said.

"If the council decides to endorse the Goldstone report it will deal a fatal blow to three major issues: Firstly, it will harm the war on terror, because it will legitimize terrorists who hide behind civilians and fire from their midst." Netanyahu stressed that in such cases, the one who ultimately takes the blame is "generally the victim, acting in legitimate self defense."

"The second devastating blow will be to the UN's status and its prestige. It will take it back to its darkest days when absurd decisions were passed within its assembly and empty it of all meaning," Netanyahu added, referring to the 1970s, when the UN adopted a resolution comparing Zionism with racism. He warned that the UN will become irrelevant if it adopts the conclusions of the report.

They've been irrelevant for decades now, as they were never truly interested in making this a better world to begin with.

The Prime Minister stated that the third and most pressing issue was the Goldstone Report's potentially "devastating effect on the peace process," and warned the world that "Israel will not be willing to take risks for peace if stripped of its right to self-defense."

Does this mean that Israel will leave the UN? If only, but I have my doubts.